Where are we supposed to solder frog power dropper on N Scale Streamline Electrofrog turnouts.

[AndrueC]

So it appears that OO gauge gets a nice pigtail you can solder a frog dropper to but..we don't? I thought we did but after damaging two turnouts I've realised that the wires under our frogs are purely link wires and not intended to be pulled out.

 

So presumably we have to solder to the rail somewhere else?

 

• Can't solder at the frog end without cutting back the sleepers which I suspect will compromise the structure of the 'V'
• I tried soldering to the link wires but on one turnout curiously it still left one dead switch rail.

 

So that only seems to leave soldering to the outside of the fixed section of the switch rails. I can do that (had to to fix the failed turnouts) but it seems a bit naff.

 

Am I missing something here? Do Peco just not expect us to want to provide separate power to the frog?

[jpendle]

It’s fiddly but I solder to the bottom of one of the frog rails as close to the plastic webbing as possible.

You need to be quick with the iron. You can also solder to the side of the frog rails inside the vee.

It would be nice if Peco added frog droppers like they do on slips, etc.

 

Regards,

 

John P

[scottystitch]

I solder to the link wire underneath the turnout. 

 

I then countersink the hole through the board for the wire. This accommodates the solder joint without upsetting the correct laying of the turnout.

 

I don't think I've ever ended up with one side isolated so that may be a different problem you've had.

 

Best 

 

Scott.

[AndrueC]

15 minutes ago, scottystitch said:

I solder to the link wire underneath the turnout. 

 

I then countersink the hole through the board for the wire. This accommodates the solder joint without upsetting the correct laying of the turnout.

 

I don't think I've ever ended up with one side isolated so that may be a different problem you've had.

It's possible that it was a turnout where I'd yanked on the wires for a while before giving up. Lesson learnt.

Edited March 31, 2022 by AndrueC

[DCB]

I would imagine the answer to the question is that you aren't supposed to solder a frog power dropper to Peco N gauge points. Its just too easy for ham fisted folks like me to ruin perfectly good points trying to solder wires to them so by not providing solder tags Peco can dodge warranty claims. Do you really need to switch point frogs?  Obviously you have to switch live frogs on live frog diamond crossings, 

I would Snip the wires and feed it from an adjacent fishplate with a dropper attached,   Its the point blade which needs the dropper on DCC.  Quite often the blades are electrically dead neither conducting through the pivot or the blade to stock rail contact.   I have bought a lot of faulty second hand points with this issue.  Most folk are oblivious to this fault believing wrongly that their locos are too short in the wheelbase and need additional pickups.  My one axle pick up test loco only stops on dead frogs and my track i bog standard out of the box Peco.

 

[AndrueC]

56 minutes ago, DCB said:

I would imagine the answer to the question is that you aren't supposed to solder a frog power dropper to Peco N gauge points. Its just too easy for ham fisted folks like me to ruin perfectly good points trying to solder wires to them so by not providing solder tags Peco can dodge warranty claims. Do you really need to switch point frogs?  Obviously you have to switch live frogs on live frog diamond crossings, 

I would Snip the wires and feed it from an adjacent fishplate with a dropper attached,   Its the point blade which needs the dropper on DCC.  Quite often the blades are electrically dead neither conducting through the pivot or the blade to stock rail contact.   I have bought a lot of faulty second hand points with this issue.  Most folk are oblivious to this fault believing wrongly that their locos are too short in the wheelbase and need additional pickups.  My one axle pick up test loco only stops on dead frogs and my track i bog standard out of the box Peco.

The frogs are live though - hence 'Electrofrog'. If I snip the wires I'll need to wire three wires on - one for each switch blade and one for the frog. If you're saying that eventually the connection between the blades and the frog will fail then fair enough but I'll deal with that when it happens. For now just one wire connecting any part of the frog or switch blades to my turnout motor controller will get power to everywhere that a wheel is going to touch

 

My previous layout used Setrack so I'm comfortable with dead frogs and I know they rarely cause any problems even with 0-6-0s. But now that I've moved onto live frogs I intend to make good use of them.

Edited March 31, 2022 by AndrueC

[Platy787]

I do the same as scottystitch on electrofrog points, and the recent unifrog points have a dropper to connect to power the frog.

 

On an electrofrog, if you use conductive joiners on either of the divergent rails from the V these are still part of the live frog and can be soldered to anywhere along the rail, as long as it is before a break.

[Ravenser]

Can anyone confirm if a dropper wire to the frog is required with the code 55 live frog points?

 

I can see no reference at all to a frog feed or switching in the instruction leaflet with the point. There is nothing on the Peco website

 

Most of the code 55 points in question are small radius, with one medium

[AndyID]

On 31/03/2022 at 06:28, AndrueC said:

Do Peco just not expect us to want to provide separate power to the frog?

 

Correct 🙂

 

The frog and the blades are all connected together. The frog gets power from the blade that's in contact with the whichever stock rail.

 

If you don't trust that method and you want to add an additional switch you need to be careful that the switch does not change the frog polarity before the blade loses contact with its stock rail. If that happens there will be a short-circuit across the track.

 

The "proper" way to do live frogs is to completely isolate them from everything else and permanently bond the blades and closure rails to the stock rails, but to do that you'd have to put isolating cuts in the closure rails which you probably don't want to do.

 

 

 

Edited April 24, 2022 by AndyID
clarification

[AndrueC]

12 hours ago, AndyID said:

 

Correct 🙂

 

The frog and the blades are all connected together. The frog gets power from the blade that's in contact with the whichever stock rail.

 

If you don't trust that method and you want to add an additional switch you need to be careful that the switch does not change the frog polarity before the blade loses contact with its stock rail. If that happens there will be a short-circuit across the track.

 

The "proper" way to do live frogs is to completely isolate them from everything else and permanently bond the blades and closure rails to the stock rails, but to do that you'd have to put isolating cuts in the closure rails which you probably don't want to do.

Well I've adopted the procedure of soldering a wire to the link wires, which isn't too difficult. I'm switching using DCC Concepts controllers and they are supposed to switch 'polarity' at the half way point. For the time being I'm not actually connecting the frog wire and will wait until a turnout starts to play up.

[Ravenser]

On this basis , I will lay my code 55 points without any frog wire, and the Peco point motor switches I bought for about £15 are now redundant....